


The Road To Redemption Is A Long One

by Stagcore



Category: Skulduggery Pleasant - Derek Landy
Genre: Angst, Book 10: Resurrection (Skulduggery Pleasant), Disordered Eating, F/M, Guilt, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Nightmares, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-05
Updated: 2018-10-05
Packaged: 2019-07-25 17:59:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16202708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stagcore/pseuds/Stagcore
Summary: This was inspired by the lyrics "Sometimes it gets so bad I almost pick up the phone" - G.I.N.A.S.F.S by Fall Out Boy. Please read the tags as this could be a triggering fic for some people. This is a small drabble about Valkyrie's time in America and what she probably feltKudos and comments are greatly appreciated! A massive thank you to my Beta @Bubblemoon66





	The Road To Redemption Is A Long One

Valkyrie stared at the phone that lay on her brown, wooden table. She only used it once or twice for the local pizza restaurant when the journey into the nearest town for food seemed like an unachievable feat. Back when the only time she could force herself to get up out of bed and eat was because the hunger pains were too much.

God knows she lost a lot of weight when those weeks or sometimes months would hit her like a truck out of nowhere. So buried and consumed by guilt she couldn’t bring herself to eat or drink or do anything other than curl up, face pressed into a pillow and want to die.

Valkyrie had thought about it more than she cared to admit. The final dive off of the deep end. She lived surrounded by woods and cliffs, it would take anyone a while to find her even if they had noticed that she wasn’t around anymore. Eventually, those thoughts were her backup plan. If it got really bad she could always take a knife to her wrists or throw herself off of the tallest cliff into the woodland below.

Not that Valkyrie could do it, of course, she had a dog now and she would be damned if she was going to leave her dog. Valkyrie winced. When had a dog come before her family? Shouldn’t she say that she wouldn’t kill herself because her little sister and her parents would miss her? And Skulduggery? What would happen to him?

Well, Valkyrie’s family weren’t there now, not for lack of want. Her phone rung every once in a while with her mum, bright and cheery on the other side wanting to tell her daughter that Alice had lost a tooth or got first place in a school event or that Alice simply missed her. They all did.

So the phone sat silent, always charged up just on the off chance that Valkyrie really couldn’t fight the war that had been raging in her head since Darquesse had first appeared. Just on the off chance that Valkyrie really did take a swan dive and she wanted to say one last goodbye to her folks before she did. After all, Valkyrie had no elemental magic. Nothing to stop her from falling to her death.

She dismissed the idea. No, she didn’t deserve the easy way out. No matter how tempting it was. No, she had to stay and let the nightmares haunt her. It’s what she deserved. She deserved the pain and the suffering. Not that she could tell anybody how she felt. How sometimes she wanted to crawl out of her skin because of the anxiety of just being seemed to be never-ending. It’s not exactly something you could phone your already-worried mother and say “Hey, mum I’m 4,000 miles away, by myself and I’m suicidal as hell, give me a reason not to end it.”

Deep down she knew that nobody would understand or be able to help anyway. So Valkyrie trained and ran and did every single thing in the “How Not To Cope Properly” book. Nobody would understand except Skulduggery. Skulduggery who has been by her side since she was barely a teen. Skulduggery who, despite knowing better, dragged her into that hell of a life.

It’s easier to blame him than to face what she knows deep down. She wouldn’t have let him say no. He told her repeatedly to stay in the car where it was safe and she always fought against it and strode into every dangerous situation like nothing could touch her and she left with blood on her knuckles and a smirk on her face. That’s how she lived for most of her life and now she was paying the price.

The nightmares, the pain, the guilt. It was all part and parcel of the suffering and the agony that she inflicted upon other people. Her alter ego had nearly scorched the world black and she knew that was going to happen for years and years but she didn’t stop using magic. She didn’t stop investigating murders or fighting the bad guys. She tricked herself into thinking that she could handle Darquesse.

Once upon a time, she was a normal girl. She went to school and to her classmates’ birthday parties. She ate dinner with her parents and complained that her life was boring and mundane. God, If she could go back, Valkyrie would never have stayed the night at Gordon’s house. She would never have even looked at the strange, slim man in the weird hat. She would never have ever wished for her life to be different or exciting.

But she couldn’t take it back. This was her burden to carry.

Biting her lip, Valkyrie picked up her phone and thought about ringing Skulduggery. If there was anyone who would understand, it would be him. Just the thought of hearing his voice again made her want to cry and vomit and scream all at once. She couldn’t bare him trying to justify her actions or make her feel better. Looking into the dark screen of the phone, she thought back to Skulduggery. What was he doing now that she had gone? Did he have a new partner to corrupt? Thinking about Skulduggery always seemed to bring her back to thinking about Darquesse and Lord Vile nowadays. They were both world breakers after all. Just one had a slightly smaller power trip than the other.

After Lord Vile and the mass slaughter that he carried out behind that twisted, mask of grief and anger and self-loathing, Skulduggery was left devastated and in shock and yet after all that he had found a purpose in living. Couldn’t Valkyrie do the same? Couldn’t she carry on with her life? No, Skulduggery was warped. He was someone who didn’t deserve redemption and he knew it. After so many years of being alive (or as close as he could get to it) he still didn’t forgive himself. Briefly, she wondered if she could ever forgive herself and shook her head. No.

Valkyrie got up from her chair, leaving the phone in its rightful place on the table. Valkyrie tied her hair up and looked out the window at the setting sun and all the colours that are spilled out into the sky like paint on a canvas. She’s survived another day and somewhere deep down that felt like an achievement.


End file.
